


The Road of Life

by decaf_kitty



Category: Naruto
Genre: Bottom Umino Iruka, M/M, Top Hatake Kakashi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:28:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22729936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decaf_kitty/pseuds/decaf_kitty
Summary: Returning from war with a new eye, Kakashi goes to see Iruka.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka
Comments: 24
Kudos: 482





	The Road of Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LeoOtherLands](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeoOtherLands/gifts).



> This was written for my friend, Leo.
> 
> May he and you enjoy. ♡
> 
> ____

It’s odd, walking home.

Obito’s alive, Obito’s dead. 

His students defeated a goddess. 

Gai accepted death, Gai overcame death. 

Kakashi should be in Konoha: this is what they fought for. But the village and its sandy streets… They feel alien. Discomfort crawls up his spine, slithers up his sweat. Unease becomes predatory, turns over his thoughts into tumult. The shinobi, all these survivors of war, they disperse in small groups, teams, pairs, individuals, like him, like Kakashi. He doesn’t look for Gai – Gai, who has lost a part of himself, not in his destroyed leg, but in the loss of Neji Hyūga. His best friend is with his other students. They’re grieving, they’re rallying, they’re mourning, they’re remembering. 

Silence in his head, silence in his steps, as he moves ever further inside their village. 

He’ll be Hokage soon.

Maybe he’s Hokage now.

No one has handed over the robes yet, so…

He glances down the pale road of life, and he wonders where he’s going. 

The hours pass, and finally… the shinobi are all inside, resting beside their people, some asleep, many awake, staring at the ceiling, at their hands, at their new scars. The citizens are aflutter with the soldiers returning, the war being won. They’re arranging funerals. They do not fill the streets, but they are busy, talking in low voices, preparing food and flowers and black cloth. 

They do not notice him, sitting idly on a rooftop, watching their village, his village. 

The apartment is rudimentary, but he likes its style. There’s a lonely ambiance to it that attracts Kakashi: he doesn’t feel so out-of-place here, like maybe the building was meant for people like him. His body isn’t prepared to walk up a staircase, and he smiles ruefully behind his mask, amused that he still feels pain after the last few days. It’s a solid structure. It seems like it could withstand another invasion or two. The front door is simple, no decorations, no number.

It doesn’t matter: Kakashi knows who lives here.

He glances down at his clothes, but of course he’s dirty. The crowd of shinobi coming home – they were all just like him, filthy with dust, debris, and blood, although most were more injured. 

He is the only one with a new eye. 

His hitai-ate is down over it, and his mask is up. His flak jacket is still on, showing the two huge cuts he’d survived. It occurs to him that if he had fallen in love with a civilian, he would need to shower and redress somewhere far away. But his person is not a civilian, and Kakashi has only just had the distant, distant pleasure of seeing him return to this very apartment a few hours ago.

They did not see each other on the great return to Konoha.

It was purposeful: Kakashi hid in the back, thinking to himself. 

He knows Iruka is safe. He saw the man on the long road of life. He saw him from a distance. 

Iruka had survived war unscarred. He imagines Iruka holding up another chūnin as the unwashed masses walked home. It would have been wrong to interrupt - so he did not. Kakashi is sure that Iruka doesn’t know any of the nin he fought beside. They’re not strangers, though. To Iruka, the other shinobi are instant true companions. They are brother-sister in arms, comrades to the end. Without question, without ever even knowing their name, Iruka would die for other shinobi. 

He would be shield, he would be sword, he would be sweet grass to lay down on, he would be soft cooling rain. He would _be_ for that nin, and wasn’t that something? To exist – to so dangerously and fully exist – to sustain your existence - for someone else you don’t even know. 

Although he walks light, and he feels tranquil, underneath Kakashi is all scars. He holds his bones together with old-new suffering. Pride in his students and pleasure at victory mixes with sorrow about Obito, about Gai, about the deaths of fellow nin. On the long walk home, he keeps his hands in his pockets and strolls alone in the farthest back of the war survivors. 

He watches them, their whispers, their tears, their haunted looks, their sore smiles. 

Calm has followed in the wake of war. Peace is ill on his form: there are voids shaped like Obito, Rin, his father, his friends… They should be here, too; they should be alive tonight when the sun sinks over the horizon like a fiery orange stone and the night slides its dark cloak over the world. 

The war is won.

The day is done. 

Tomorrow will come anew. 

He knocks once on the door. That should be enough. Above all, after all, Iruka is always so…

He is always attentive.

Iruka opens the door, easy and slow. He’s very tired, he’s rubbing his right eye, like he only just woke up so he could welcome whoever is at his door. It’s not that late, but, then again, these last several days of them all sleeping outside, with the dying and dead nearby… Kakashi didn’t sleep well. He certainly does not believe Iruka is able to handle the din of anguish any better than him.

A lengthy pause.

Kakashi offers a hand up out of his pocket. Iruka follows the motion, trying to understand. Then he gets it, all at once, Kakashi is here to say hello at war’s end, and so Iruka further opens the door, gesturing with head and hand for Kakashi to enter and take his place inside quiet serenity.

He does, although he feels a little wary. War nerves are hard to overcome, but exhaustion keeps him moving through worries about threats hiding away in Iruka’s apartment. There are signs that Iruka was sleeping on the floor by the low-lying table. A tiny delicate teacup sits near the edge, like he just put it down to stand up and go to the door. On cue, Iruka closes the door behind them and sits down where Kakashi suspected he had been sleeping moments ago.

Saying nothing, Kakashi sits near him at the table. 

He’s too close, and they both know it. 

Iruka’s accustomed to this, though – to Kakashi pushing boundaries. He doesn’t even have the strength to make a weird little expression about it: he just accepts the suggestive proximity. 

Fascinating some absurdist part of Kakashi, he notices that Iruka doesn’t offer him tea or food. Perhaps good etiquette died alongside shinobi in the late war. 

Instead, they’re sitting in silence at the table, looking tiredly at each other.

It takes a while, but Kakashi eventually does it.

He pulls off his hitai-ate and puts it on the ground. He flexes open his new eye. Carefully, he presents himself – his new self, his self that will be Hokage, the Rokudaime – to Iruka Umino.

Iruka stares. Disbelief and surprise fuse together on his scarred face. In his confusion, his eyebrows knit together, and he puts a hand on the table as he leans forward towards Kakashi.

As Iruka does so, Kakashi finally speaks. His voice is raspy through his mask as he explains shortly, simply, “Madara took the Sharingan. Naruto made me a new eye on the battlefield.”

Iruka’s hand is suddenly on the scarred side of Kakashi’s face. The motion was not so quick that Kakashi could not have dodged it, but nonetheless he finds himself blindsided by the action. He imagined the chūnin-sensei would do something like this: he pushes boundaries just like Kakashi, but his are about intimacy and care. They’re less playful, they’re much more serious, they mean just as much, but there’s a heavy weight behind Iruka’s touches that challenge Kakashi. 

He wills himself to stay still.

Iruka’s calloused index finger runs up the divot of Kakashi’s scar. It traces around his new eye, where Obito’s Sharingan once resided for so long, and connects back with the old knife injury.

Then Iruka pulls his hand back down, and he cups the entirety of Kakashi’s cheek. His eyes are warm, and he’s smiling, just a small smile, but it’s there, and it’s fond, meant for Kakashi alone.

When Iruka doesn’t say anything immediately, but still keeps his hand on Kakashi, it provokes the low curious question, spoken through his war-soaked mask, “Is something wrong?”

He’s aware he’s asking a million different things. 

How did Iruka survive the war? Did he kill anyone? Did he see anyone die? Did he fight with Naruto when he tried to keep the boy hero at home? He must have. How did that go? Were there tears and screams and barrier jutsu? Will they speak soon, Iruka and Naruto? Are they still family after all this? … could Kakashi be a part of that family, too? His blood-kin are all dead, and he has a found family, but half of them are dead, too. He has his three students, but Iruka has many more. Do they count, the ever-fluctuating group of pre-genin, do they count as family?

Is Iruka alone, too? Neither of them is totally alone, but… but is Iruka alone on the road of life?

Could he want... maybe he would want…

The tatami mats underneath them are new; they were made after the war-time destruction of Konoha, the time that Kakashi stood in front of Iruka, stopping metal from ending him, from killing him. He had caught the blade and cracked it, he told Iruka to get out of here, he would handle this invading conquering force of shinobi. He had… not done that. No, instead... Kakashi had died, and Iruka probably learned about it later, much later, that although Kakashi’s intervention might have saved him, it had led directly to Kakashi dying, to his bloody death.

They’d never spoken about it.

Was that wrong? 

He can’t imagine the world without Iruka, the chūnin-sensei changing outcasts into heroes.

But the world wants Kakashi Hatake of the Sharingan to have a Sharingan, and now he does not have it, and he’s wondering what that even means. He’s going to be Hokage for memorizing a thousand jutsus with his teammate’s gifted eye, the shinobi who organized the start of the Fourth Shinobi War, his friend who died _again_ and tried to help them finish the very thing that he’d orchestrated. Off Obito went into the afterlife, off to see Rin, leaving Kakashi alone again.

Now he has no Sharingan. How useful is he without it? He knows people will wonder.

Truly, is something wrong - ?

Is there something wrong with him?

In the still of the apartment, Iruka leans even closer to Kakashi, and he gazes deeply into Kakashi’s recently identical eyes. He is exceedingly quiet as he answers, “No, nothing's wrong at all.”

… might Iruka want company on the road of life?

He sees that his fingertips are dirty as he pulls down his mask. However, Iruka seems not to notice and preferences learning Kakashi’s exposed face like he might ponder a piece of art. He had to remove his hand when the mask came down, and Kakashi wonders what he’ll do with the freedom, and Iruka answers silently, catching Kakashi’s flak jacket right above the zipper and pulling him forward around the corner of the table.

They’re not an inch away now.

Their noses almost touch. 

He can feel Iruka’s gentle breath on his face.

His skin’s so sensitive without the mask… it feels like a frost-filled wind.

His new eye is perfect: he can see Iruka’s hopeful desire in the dark of the man’s eyes.

They move closer together, the last boundary between them, and then –

Their first kiss is soul-melting. He feels everything tangled up inside him unwind at once. His hands move without thought, out of his control, and he’s underneath Iruka’s shirt, clenching at the man’s very real, warm, muscular sides in rhythmic bursts of energy. His body is not expecting Iruka’s aggression: he shudders as Iruka rapidly unzips his jacket and throws it, purposefully telling Kakashi to get rid of it, while he redirects his attention down to Kakashi’s pants, pulling at them with increasing force. 

Through it all, they’re still kissing, taking little breaths in between. The kisses are messy, wanting, demanding. He can taste dust on Iruka’s mouth, but he realizes belatedly that it’s him, he’s getting dirt and debris on Iruka, who seems to have taken a shower since his return from the war. 

But Iruka doesn’t care about that. Really, nothing is wrong. No, not to him. 

It’s obvious he wants Kakashi as he is now, who he was then, who he will be later.

The acceptance makes Kakashi melt even more: he can’t handle the heat, he’s undressing the rest of the way, he’s getting every bit of cloth off of Iruka. They’re nude before he can blink. But then he never blinks, because there’s too much to see. His new eye is excellent, witnessing Iruka Umino laid out underneath him on the floor, with strong arms reaching and pulling him down. 

Their skin connecting everywhere is such a surprise that Kakashi shudders again and groans.

Laughing breathily, Iruka hooks his leg around the small of Kakashi’s back, bringing them even closer somehow. 

There’s the instant satisfaction of being in this position, but he knows there can be more, and he wants that, he wants that desperately with Iruka, and so he’s rediscovering his strength, escaping Iruka’s hold and jostling the man into place, enjoying the sight of hard flesh and signs of want.

The look of shock that flies across Iruka’s face is just the right kind of incentive. 

He’s stupidly greedy in his desire for the other man, and he’s in no mood for teasing, so the action startles Iruka endlessly but Kakashi keeps licking, using his tongue broadly, then precisely, and then finally pushing inside, all as he holds Iruka’s thighs hard and the shinobi’s legs high.

They should do more, there’s pain to ward off here, if only they could handle themselves.

But it’s Iruka who snatches at Kakashi’s face and suddenly gets a grip on his chin, jerking him up, getting Kakashi’s tongue away, clattering Kakashi’s teeth together, making Kakashi look at him.

Those dark eyes are demanding.

And who is Kakashi to disobey?

He positions himself, Iruka is clearly forcing himself to relax. They’re too excited, this could be bad, this could leave a bad sort of mark, but then again, Iruka can’t endure anymore, and his hand is past his own cock and touching Kakashi’s, insistently navigating the tight space between his thighs and bringing Kakashi’s whole body into motion, trying to get him closer, closer, closer. 

Then Kakashi’s there, and Iruka lets him go, falling back and going through breathing mantras.

It’s up to him alone to push in.

Kakashi only does so when he can see calm caressing Iruka’s form. It’s not enough, of course, and Iruka winces, hisses in pain, but they wait it out, and remarkably soon, Iruka’s wet eyes are meeting Kakashi’s, and he’s soundlessly begging for more, his scarred expression open and clear.

They both need it – that’s a relief – because Kakashi might be slow initially, but they both want it so much, they need it so much, that they’re both quickly much more forceful with each other. 

His hands fit so well on Iruka’s waist, on his hips, on his ass. He can barely take it all in, but exhaustion means little in these sorts of moments, particularly when Iruka’s radiating real pleasure with each and every thrust inside him. He’s gasping, he’s moaning: Kakashi isn’t even listening to himself, he likes Iruka’s sounds so much. 

Time sweeps out of the way, leaving them together.

He pulls Iruka up into his lap and kisses him, kisses him _hard_. Stars explode behind his closed eyes. He tries to open them, realizes that’s just happening, he’s seeing stars all around them, he’s sort-of blacking out, he’s shorting out like circuitry crackling, but Iruka stabilizes him, keeps him in check, holds him solid and secure. 

Kakashi has his mouth shut as he looks over the other man, who is so much more a mess, a beautiful and awe-inspiring mess. Flushed scarred cheeks, hair half-torn from his ponytail, sweat and saliva shining wet on his face, lips parted and pink tongue out like he’s going to –

Ah, Iruka licks him, licks Kakashi’s throat, then nibbles, then _bites_.

The encouragement is not entirely needed, but Kakashi gets the point, and he’s back to moving into Iruka, now in this new sweeter more intimate position, and he works it so he can use one hand to touch Iruka for the first time, sending them both into cold-air shivers in the hot night.

Iruka’s kissing his neck, his shoulderblade, whatever bare skin he can find. 

The man’s back scar is tempting to touch, but there will be other moments like this, so Kakashi just _fucks_ Iruka until the other man can’t breathe, until he’s stuttering gasps against Kakashi’s shoulder, until his cock is hard and tense in Kakashi’s hand.

He makes sure, unable to think anything else, that Iruka comes first.

The sudden scratches down Kakashi’s back stir him up, make his eyelashes flutter in delight. He only needs two, three more thrusts up into the other man before he’s there, too, seeing white and tasting dirt, sweat, acceptance.

They’re laying entwined on the tatami mats. The tea’s spilled beside them. 

Iruka is probably sore, he’s a mess, he may be bleeding…

But the man won’t let him go, so Kakashi just stays in his arms, carefully holding him in return.

Yesterday they survived a war.

Tomorrow Kakashi will be Hokage. 

He glances down at Iruka, who has gone very quiet. The man looks comfortable, disheveled and wrecked but comfortable, and it doesn’t seem to matter that there was a war, or that Kakashi will be the village’s leader, or that there is cold black tea staining the tatami mat beside them. 

It takes a second, but Iruka realizes he’s being observed. He catches Kakashi’s gaze, and he…

He lifts a hand and strokes Kakashi’s face.

He smiles.

And today, tonight… they’re together on the road of life.


End file.
